


Misplaced Grace

by watchthebees



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Fallen Angels, Fallen Castiel, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:44:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchthebees/pseuds/watchthebees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has a lot to learn about his new found humanity. Thankfully, Dean is willing to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misplaced Grace

Misplaced Grace  
Ch 1: Home

The wheels of the old Impala screeched in protest as it skidded down the drenched, oil-slicked road before coming to a jerking stop a few feet away from where he sat. For a moment Castiel thought that the driver had caught a glimpse of him and hadn’t recognized the effects of what a few weeks of scrounging, scraping humanity had on the fallen angel and mistook him for someone else. 

He hadn’t seen a mirror since landing unceremoniously in the woods the night he and the angels fell, but he was willing to bet he looked nothing like what the Winchesters had last seen. The slam of the door and the quick, heavy footsteps slapping the pavement as they approached proved him wrong.

Castiel squinted his eyes against the falling rain and tugged his stolen ill-fitting jacket closer to him as he stood to meet Dean Winchester beneath the brick overhang he had been seeking cover beneath. His borrowed body protested with sharp twinges of pain, still aching from the abuse inflicted upon it from the car crash with Hael. The sensation of it seemed to stun him every time.

_“We’re only a couple hours away, Cas, don’t move. We’re coming for you. Come on, Sammy…”_

_In the quiet of the phone booth, Castiel could hear the commotion on the other end of the phone. He imagined Dean haphazardly tossing clothes and guns and food and holy water into a bag as he and his brother hurried for the door. They were leaving whatever case they were working on at the moment to come find him. Because he was lost and alone, scared and exhausted. Human and ashamed of the fragility that came with it._

_Dean had been met with silence._

_“Cas?,” His tone was questioning, worried._

_“Hey…it’s going to be okay we can fix this, you hear me?”_

_Castiel inhaled sharply at the words, fixing his eyes on the smudged glass on the ceiling above him and the graffiti scrawled across the walls._

_“I heard you, Dean, I’m fine,” was his stock response._

He had been without his grace long enough to know that this was not going to be okay by any stretch of the word but Dean had sounded so forceful, so resolved that Castiel hadn’t bothered letting him know that then.

Cas stood still and silent as Dean approached with his arms outstretched and a gleeful expression clinging stubbornly to his face despite the obvious concern that clouded those green eyes of his. 

“Hello Dean,” he offered quietly, averting his eyes.

Dean threw his arms around Castiel wordlessly as he had when he found him in purgatory, pushing his own weight into Castiel’s chest and his arms securing around his back. Maybe it was a loss of strength from his missing grace, maybe it was the hunger, exhaustion, or dehydration but for whatever reason the force of the impact knocked the smaller man back a step before Dean steadied him again.

The misstep took Castiel by surprise and his hand flew up to grip Dean’s shoulder, fingers splaying naturally over the handprint he had singed into the flesh there when he first laid a hand to it in hell. In the past he would find excuses to brush over that spot or grip Dean poignantly there when he had a point to make. He would allow his true form to unfurl and sneak lazily through his vessel, across the distance between them, past his words in Enochian on Dean’s ribs and latch on to the sliver of his own grace that was imparted onto Dean’s soul during their ascent from the fire. It would glow brightly in the recognition of him. He could never be sure, but when he watched the knowing look in Dean’s eyes, he could swear that the other man could feel it too.

Castiel closed his eyes, furrowed his brow in concentration and pushed. Pushed with whatever Metatron had left him with inside his vessel. Nothing. Perhaps his grace had been stolen from Dean as well.

“I can’t feel it,” Castiel murmured, shivering as Dean’s warm sigh of understanding blew past his cheek. He took a step back.

Dean’s eyes crinkled at the corners, almost wincing from the loss of contact and the cold wind that replaced it.

“Come on, man, you look like shit,” his charge muttered, slipping an arm around his shoulders, urging Castiel to rest some of his weight into his side, “Let’s go home.” 

Home was a long way away and Castiel was sure that Dean couldn’t get him there. He shrugged him off again and felt the other man’s hand slide across the small of his back where the sensitive flesh of his wings once joined his vessel.

Dean’s expression when he first laid eyes on that part of his true form in the warehouse floated up in Castiel’s mind. He bitterly recalled the awe on his friend’s face when he realized he was in the presence he had never seen before. Something powerful and divine. Something to be feared, maybe even respected.

Not anymore.

“I’m human, Dean,” he stated plainly. A grimace threatened to push onto the emotionless expression he struggled to maintain upon hearing the gravel in his voice force out the words he had been thinking over and over as he waited for the brothers to retrieve him, “And what little I know about being human I’ve learned from watching you. I will be of little help to you and Sam. I don’t know how to…” he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders as he passed a hand through his hair. It was a gesture he learned from Dean that he now appreciated the dismissive quality of.

“I’m a burden now.” 

“Come on, man, you’re acting like you already gave up. Just because you’re not immortal doesn’t mean you’re dying,” Dean remarked with an exasperated tone.

“Actually, I’m fairly certain that is exactly what it means,” Castiel replied matter-of-factly.

Dean’s hand shot out to touch him again, gripping him hard on the shoulder. His eyes were pleading, his jaw was set sternly.

“You’ve been an angel for a billion years and human for a few days. Sammy and I…we’ll teach you things. We’ll look for a way around this mess and in the mean time we’ll teach you to hunt with us. You may not be able to tie your own shoes but we aren’t going to leave you here to figure it out on your own. We still need you, Cas.”

The angel blinked, taken aback at the emotion Dean managed to push into his words as he spoke, the feelings he emphasized with nothing more than a touch of his hand and a look in his eyes, the forms of communication Cas never fully understood or thought to utilize himself, that he wasn’t equipped to master until now.

Castiel didn’t answer. He simply nodded and stepped out into the rain, waiting for Dean to join him. The cold drops pelted his exposed skin, taking with it the days of dirt and sweat and dried blood that had settled there as it fell. 

He closed his eyes tight as Dean’s arm found his back again and this time he allowed himself to be lead towards the old Impala that would be the substitute for his wings now, with the two brothers who would be his grace here on Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:  
> This was going to be a quick implied Destiel one shot but I caught the feels and I'm going to keep going. Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. :D


End file.
